LAFAYETTE, La. — Abortions remain legal in Louisiana for now after the Louisiana Supreme Court said it won’t step in yet to overturn a New Orleans judge’s decision to temporarily stop enforcement of state’s abortion ban trigger law.
That sets the stage for an 11 a.m. Friday hearing in New Orleans Civil District Court under Judge Ethel Julien.
New Orleans Civil District Court Judge Robin Giarrusso temporarily blocked Louisiana's abortion ban from taking effect on June 27.
Julien will hear arguments on behalf of a Shreveport, La. abortion clinic, Hope Medical Clinic for Women, which filed a lawsuit asking to block the ban, and Republican Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry's team, who will argue the trigger law should be allowed to take effect.
Late Wednesday the Supreme Court said it was too early for it to intervene: "The court declines to exercise its plenary supervisory jurisdiction at this preliminary stage of proceedings," a statement issued by the court said.
Landry said that ruling is "delaying the inevitable."
"Our Legislature fulfilled their constitutional duties, and now the judiciary must," the attorney general tweeted. "It is disappointing that time is not immediate. We have fought for 50 years to overturn Roe — we will have the patience of Job, but make no mistake we will prevail!"
Julien will decide whether to extend Giarrusso's ruling blocking the abortion ban after Friday's hearing.
If she puts a more permanent restraining order in place, the Louisiana Supreme Court will almost certainly hear the case.
Louisiana's trigger law, which was passed in 2006 and updated last month through a bill by Democratic Monroe Sen. Katrina Jackson, made abortion illegal with no exceptions for rape and incest.
It was designed to go into effect immediately if the U.S. Supreme Court reversed its historic Roe v. Wade decision that guaranteed legalized abortion and returned the power to regulate abortion to individual states.
But the Hope clinic's lawsuit represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights challenges the constitutionality of what it describes as "vague trigger laws."
The lawsuit claims the language makes it impossible to tell whether any of the laws are in effect, which ones are in effect and what would be prohibited.